“ I absolutely experience an worked up adherence to my bees , ” says Erika Thompson , an Austin - free-base beekeeper who cares for around 5 million of the louse at herTexas Beeworksventure .
It ’s a mid - dawning weekday . Thompson is taking farm animal of the aftereffects of the giant winter violent storm that transport percentage of Texas during February 2020 . Her usually brilliant voice lowers to a more hushed strain as she explains , “ A fortune of colonies made it through . But nobody was groom for that atmospheric condition , include the bees . Unfortunately some of the colonies that were n’t quite as strong did n’t make it through . ”
Even take into story the oversize musical scale of bees that Thompson claims province for at Texas Beeworks — an manufacture stock normal for bee counts approximate 50,000 bees inhabit each beehive — she says that every loss remains “ fantastically emotional ” to trade with . Thompson often tell herself that when she stops find affect by the personnel casualty of a settlement , that will be the clear signal it ’s time to move on from her visit as a beekeeper .
“ I like having that emotional fastening to them , ” she conclude . “ It make me a better beekeeper . ”
Beeworks Backstory
Thompson earlier start Texas Beeworks in 2014 and switched to running the venture full fourth dimension in 2019 . But it was the viral success of the bee - based instructional videos she began posting to theTikToksocial medium land site the following year that advance her rise to gibbousness as a public beekeeping figure .
Each TikTok upload to date has attract a lower limit of a million eyeball .
In April of 2020 , Thompson sharedfootageof herself shaking out a box of bee to a section of soda pop vocalist Taylor Swift ’s ubiquitous “ Shake It Off ” vocal . ( upshot : 1.7 million persuasion . )
Recently , Thompson relayed footage of how to vivify a bee that has become adversely affected by the cold wintertime conditions and entered what she calls a“chill coma . ”(Two million views and numeration . ) Most pivotal of all , in August of last year a video of Thompson removing a dependency from a backyard compost bin went legitimately viral and was viewed over40 million times .
In the clip , Thompson wield the bee without any protective geared wheel . She commentates on the appendage in an explanatory voice that blends ebullience with a calming tone .
( As a disavowal , Thompson quotation in the footage that discover to read the behavior of bees allow her know that she was not rescue an agitated or angry bunch . So she was able to fling the traditional protective beekeeping garb . )
Read more : Here are 7 beekeeping myths that just are n’t true .
Surprised by Social Media
meditate on her rise to social media popularity , Thompson enounce that she ’s “ absolutely ” surprised at the way her visibility has skyrocketed . She also encounter it a little phantasmagorical .
speak to such a immense audience through her Texas Beeworks accounts comes with what she views as a “ rich sense of duty ” toward both the bees and her beekeeping peers .
“ I feel so lucky to have these opportunity to show citizenry the significant work bees and apiarist do every day , ” she tell .
“Just Who I Was”
Long before Thompson get in as a public apiarist figure , she recall becoming initially potty with insects while grow up in Katy , a suburban area of Houston . After Thompson ’s parents deny her request to summate a pet Dalmatian to the household , she witness fulfilment in the backyard . There , she collected and monitored local bugs .
As a kid , Thompson looked at the English primatologist and conservationistJane Goodallas a Hero of Alexandria . ( Goodall is best known for her pioneering work study chimpanzee in Tanzania . ) “ My mammy has pic of me with binoculars around my neck and all my ape and scamp animate being lined up , ” recalls Thompson . “ I was playing Jane Goodall originate up . That ’s just who I was . ”
A fascination with insects and animals stayed with Thompson through to adulthood . In 2011 , she enrolled in a beekeeping division . This was n’t , she reflects , with the express destination of becoming a apiarist . Rather , she responded to news report about how bee were dying and how it was imperative to save the bees .
“ I did n’t really know what that mean and wanted to do it why , ” she says . “ I live in Central Austin at the metre and had a very small backyard . So I did n’t think I could keep bees . ”
After learning the basics of bee behavior in the class — along with profit experience going into the hives — Thompson emerged with baseline knowledge . But she enounce rather of taking away specific deterrent example from her inaugural beekeeping class , she was inspired by the more holistic idea that it was paramount to “ just watch over your heart . ” That ’s what take her to start Texas Beeworks and happen her eventual audience .
“ If I did n’t do that , I would n’t be where I am today . ”
Besotted with Bees
When Thompson spill about bees , she does so with a potpourri of infectious wonder — much in the manner of a child heading full on into their first hobby obsession — and the mania of an advocate .
She speak with silly veneration about the time a year ago when Texas Beeworks received a call from someone who discovered bees in an old farmhouse that had been left vacant . When she make it at the scene , Thompson was amazed to encounter five ginormous floor - to - roof bee beehive embedded in the walls of the attribute .
“ It was five whole separate colonies that had been living there for year , maybe even decades . It ’s laborious to say , ” she recall . “ I strike the bee lottery ! It ’s one of those things that will never happen again , I ’m indisputable . It was so much fun to spend time in that house and murder all the bees . ”
Read more : concerned in beekeeping ? Consider these things first .
Bee Behavior
Asked for a preferred fact about bee , Thompson take a present moment to compass into her inner archive . She then begin explain how the composition of a honeybee colony is around 90 to 100 per centime female .
“ That ’s because the female bees — we call them prole bees — do all the employment . They ’re the bee out forage , take in food , contain care of babe bee . They ’re building the colonies . But the manlike bee , they have one occupation and that ’s to mate with the queen . They do n’t have stingers . They do n’t have wax gland , and they do n’t scrounge for food for thought . ”
link up Thompson ’s many hive removal missions and insinuate bee behavior knowledge and viral TikTok video recording is her commitment to the broader school of thought of the dirt ball . She openly talks about the respectfulness and emotional attachment she feels towards her colony . There ’s an empathic reverence to her voice as she wonder at how bee maneuver as a collective .
They might all have unique temperaments . And rivalries may form between potent and weaker colonies . But a colony at last operates as “ a super - being so no bee think of him or herself as an someone . They go in this mass corporate for the trade good of the colony . ”
This communal way of thought process and concenter on the welfare of the whole group is a mentality that Thompson readily feel humans could take a few arrow from .
“ We can learn so much from bee , ” she say . “ bee imagine of themselves as basically selfless and are just all working together and are so effective and resourceful . ”
After taking a beat , Thompson adds , “ If we could all be a picayune more bee - like , it would be a practiced world . ”
